


der nachname

by orangeboba



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, lots of swearing bc levi's here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeboba/pseuds/orangeboba
Summary: a reflection on levi's complicated relationship with his surname and his uncle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	der nachname

**c. 844**  


“Name?” asked the bored-looking man with dull sandy hair at the enlistment desk.  
“Levi.”  
The man gave Levi a strange look. “Surname?”  
“I don’t have one.”  
“Don’t be smart with me.”  
“I’m a whore’s bastard son from the underground,” Levi said sharply, enjoying the way the soldier recoiled at his bluntness. “I don’t. Have. One.”  
The man looked uncertain. “Well… make one up then. You need it for your records.”  
_Smith_ was the first name that came to mind, the most common surname among the dwellers of the walls, but that his target's name. And it was a stupid name. Levi briefly wondered if Smith was Erwin’s real name, or a cover for an unwanted name that had been cast off.  
The officer tapped his pen impatiently. “I don’t have all day. Use your father’s name or something.”  
“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t have one of those either.”  
The man groaned.  
Levi had never _needed_ a surname before today. In the underground, people wouldn’t bat an eye at someone with only one name. Using the Ackermann name was like putting a target on his back. And like hell he was going to take the name of the man who had tossed him, a fucking orphaned child, into the gutter like a piece of trash.  
“Kuchelsson. It’s Kuchelsson.”  
“Fine. Levi Kuchelsson.” He watched the man write it down with one _‘s’_. K-u-c-h-e-l-s-o-n. Levi wasn’t a skilled reader or writer, but he had imagined it spelled with a double _‘s’_. Kuchel’s-son.  
“It’s spelled with a double _‘s’_ ,” he corrected.  
“Are you serious—“  
“It’s _my_ name,” he insisted. “I decide how it’s spelled.”  
“Fine.” The man squeezed another _‘s’_ into the word, and moved down the paper. “Date of birth?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Oh my god,” the enrollment officer dragged his hand down his face. “Do you know how old you are?”  
“Between twenty-four and twenty-eight.”  
“Oookay,” the man exhaled. “I’ll make this easy for the both of us.” The officer sized Levi up and scribbled something down. “Cadet Kuchelsson, as of today you are twenty-five years old and your birthday is December twenty-fifth. Nice square numbers.”  
Levi narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t tell if the officer was genuine, or if that was a jab at his intelligence.  
“Do you have a next of kin? Someone we could contact if you die?”  
That was _definitely_ a jab at his intelligence. _I’m not fucking stupid. I know what a next of kin is_ , he bit back.  
“Isabel Magnolia and Farlan Church. You have their information on file.”  
The officer rifled through a stack of some other papers, nodding and pulling out two sheets. “I see. Anyone outside the military?”  
“No one.”  
The man sighed again, resigned to Levi’s unsatisfactory answers.  
“Hometown… I’ll just write _underground_. Any health conditions to declare?”  
“None.”  
“I just need you to sign here.” he turned the paper around and tapped a line drawn next to an x at the bottom of the page.  
Levi printed his name neatly next to the x, pressing hard on the double _‘s’_ in his invented last name. Like a surname, the ability to write script was something Levi had never needed. One more thing to add to the list of things he would have to learn to blend in with aboveground society.  
The officer stamped the paper with a red seal, stacked it with the others, and called “Next!”

————————— 

**c. 850**  


“He was my uncle.” Levi said softly.  
He drained the last of his tea and shifted against the side of Erwin’s desk. He leaned against it with his back to the commander, trying to alleviate the weight on his bad leg. There was a cold front coming in, if the ache where his leg fractured a few months ago was as sure a sign as the billowing clouds beyond the walls.  
He was getting old. He was older now than his uncle had been when he’d found him.  
He really should get some painkillers from the medics’ office.  
“Kenny?” Erwin clarified, but didn’t look up from his paperwork.  
instead of answering, Levi pushed open the bottom cabinet of Erwin’s desk with his foot and pulled out the commander’s favorite whiskey. He poured a generous amount into his teacup, downed it, refilled it, and downed it again. He stared at the whiskey label, seeing the words but not reading them. He sighed, set his teacup on the desk with precise fingers, and started drinking straight from the bottle. Not for the first time, he wished it took less for him to get drunk.  
Erwin looked up from his writing. “Stop it. That’s expensive.”  
“I’ll buy you another one.”  
“That’s not the point. You’re wasting it.”  
He was right. He always was.  
_Everyone had to be drunk on something to keep living._  
For reasons completely unrelated to his alcohol consumption, Levi suddenly felt sick. He put down the bottle. Erwin moved it to the other side of the desk, out of Levi’s reach, and held out his hand for the stopper. Levi dropped it into his palm.  
Erwin stoppered the bottle and looked Levi square in the eye. Levi shifted his own gaze away, like a skittish animal caught in a confrontation.  
He couldn’t read Erwin’s intentions, and he didn’t want to hear whatever he was going to say. Erwin had an uncanny way of seeing straight through him.  
“You were afraid that he was your father.” Erwin said with a measured voice. Fuck. There it was.  
“Fuck off.” Levi snapped. “I wouldn’t give a shit if he was.” He returned to his place against the desk with his back to Erwin.  
But it was true. His heart had plummeted to his ass when Kenny said _I wasn’t meant to be anyone’s father._ Levi had misconstrued it as confirmation of his greatest fear (and sometimes hope), and when he’d pressed further, when he asked _What were you to my mother_ , he was met with _Just her brother_. And his heart had started to beat again.  
The first thing Kenny the Ripper had done for Levi was rescue him from that stinking whorehouse. He’d held his hand, kept him fed, taught him to fight, left him on the streets, killed his friends, tried to kill him. And the last thing Kenny the Ripper had done for his sister’s son was tell him the honest truth and entrust him with a power that could save his life or the life of someone he loved.  
From the corner of his eye Levi watched Erwin return to his work. The commander's left-handed writing was unsteady, and eventually he dropped his pen and reached up to rub the stump of his right shoulder. His wound probably ached with the changing weather too. They were a pitiful sight. Two crippled thirty-something old men, one foot in the grave because of their line of work, headed for hell, alive only because one was drunk on ambition and the other one was drunk on allegiance.  
_Everyone had to be drunk on something._  
Kenny’s last words echoed true in Levi’s head. At first he’d been haunted by the thought that his drink of choice had been his own shitty fucking pride, but that was wrong. He was addicted to allegiance. All his life, he’d needed someone to devote his heart to. And when they inevitably died or left him, he found someone new and skewered his beating heart for them.  
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” he said bitterly. “It doesn’t matter if he was my shitty uncle, my shitty father, or a shitty stranger. The point is, he was shitty.”  
He could feel Erwin’s unsettling gaze boring into his back. “Don’t lie to yourself, Levi Ackermann.”  
Levi stiffened at the sound of his full name. He hadn’t heard it spoken aloud for years.  
His name.  
Kuchel’s name.  
Kenny’s name.  
_What the hell._  
He turned around and slammed his palms to the desk. “Erwin. Does the Corps still hold on to records of enrollment for every living soldier?”  
“Yes.”  
“No matter how old?”  
“Yes.”  
“Where?”  
“The fourth row of cabinets in the filing room.”  
Levi was already out the door.  
He pounded down the stairs, down the hall, and threw open the door to the filing room, startling the records assistant.  
“Captain!” She jumped up from her desk. “What’s wrong?”  
“I need enrollment records from the past ten years. _Now._ It’s for the commander,” he half-truthed.  
“Right this way, Sir,” she led him to the fourth row of cabinets, and pulled open a drawer.  
“Thank you, go back to your desk,” Levi waved her away, poring over the drawer. Years 850, 849, 848, alphabetized by last name. Too recent. He slammed it shut and pulled open the one below it. Years 847, 846, 845, 844.  
The file labeled 844 was nearly empty. Levi thumbed through the few remaining sheets and pulled out a familiar yellowed paper.  
He took the stairs two at a time, slammed Erwin’s office door open and shut, rattling the window and eliciting a quiet _goddammit_ from the other man. He commandeered a pen and half of the real estate on the desk, and violently marked up the sheet of paper he’d taken.  
He presented it to Erwin.  
“I need you to sign off on something for me.”  
If he was ruffled by the captain’s bizarre actions, Erwin didn’t show it. He simply took the paper and looked over it.  
And he smiled.  
“It’s not very orthodox, but for you, I’ll allow it.”  
At the top of the page, next to Levi’s name, two lines crossed through cramped letters spelling _Kuchelsson_ , and next to it a new surname had been written.  
_Ackermann_.  
Beside the seven-years-too-late correction, Erwin wrote _Change of name approved 850/08/10 by Erwin Smith._ He stamped it and handed it back to Levi.  
Levi drew two lines through the old printed name at the bottom of the page and signed his new name, his real name, the name borne by his mother and uncle before him, in ribbon-like script.  
_Levi Ackermann._

**Author's Note:**

> i prefer the double n spelling for ackermann because it's the german form and i think it looks sexier
> 
> this is me first published fic and it's probably ooc and poorly researched so i don't expect it to go anywhere but if you comment or give this kudos i'm kissing you right on the lips


End file.
